I have a little problem. I'm addicted to cookbooks, food writing, recipe collecting, and cooking. I have a lot of recipes waiting for me to try them, and ideas from articles, tv, and restaurants often lead to new dishes. I started losing track of what I've done. So now I'm taking photos and writing about what I've prepared—unless it's terrible in which case I forget it ever happened.
Pickled pumpkin has such a nice ring to it, and that’s what this was supposed to be. The page for this salad had been marked since March when I first got the book My Favorite Ingredients. I had waited months to try it, and when I had an extra butternut squash and some tomatoes on hand from our CSA, I went for it. With a mix of both winter squash and tomatoes, it’s a perfect cross-over season dish. I’ve enjoyed everythingI’ve triedfrom this book. Interesting flavor combinations and simple, seasonal dishes keep me coming back to it. The chapters in the book are organized by ingredient, and this salad is from the vinegar chapter. The butternut squash was pickled in red wine vinegar, and the salad was finished with aged balsamic. The vinegars were balanced by the sweetness of the squash and slow-roasted tomatoes and the beautiful, creamy, fresh burrata.
To begin, you should pop the tomatoes in the oven since they slow-roast for three to four hours. Of course, this can be done in advance, and the tomatoes can be stored in the refrigerator. Halved tomatoes were sprinkled with salt and pepper and roasted at 250 degrees F until shriveled with concentrated flavor. For the pickles, sugar was combined with red wine vinegar, a bottle of dry, white wine, some bay leaves, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, a bunch of thyme, and a hot chile. The mixture was warmed until the sugar dissolved while the butternut squash was seeded and sliced. The peel was left on the squash to keep the thin pieces intact while cooking. The squash slices were placed in the pickling liquid where they simmered for about an hour and then were allowed to cool. I picked the squash pickles out of the liquid and strained the liquid back over the pickles before storing them in the refrigerator. Readying the tomatoes and pickles took some time, but it was mostly waiting time. Then, putting together the salad was a breeze. The dressing for the salad was a mix of fresh oregano leaves chopped with some salt and combined with lemon juice and olive oil. The pickled squash and roasted tomatoes were arranged on plates and topped with burrata, that was drizzled with the oregano dressing, and then aged balsamic was dribbled on the plate.
This was my kind of salad since I like just about any kind of pickle. The butternut squash slices had softened a little but retained some texture, and you could cook them more or less to achieve whatever level of crispness you prefer. As they were, they provided nice textural contrast with the roasted tomatoes and burrata. And, there were plenty of leftover pickles. They're great for snacking straight out of the refrigerator.
Last week, I was planning to bake cookies for some friends, and I wanted to come up with something their kids would really like. I asked Kurt what kind of cookies I should bake. His answer, shockingly, was chocolate chip. You should know that anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances, when asked what type of cookie should be baked, Kurt’s answer will be chocolate chip. And, he backed up that predictable response by informing me that everyone likes chocolate chip and surely that would make the kids happy. Well, he had a point, but I also wanted to offer something a little bit different and fun. I went searching through both paper and digital files and found these s’mores cookies that I bookmarked from a cookie slideshow. I thought they definitely qualified as fun. They’re also really easy to make. The cookie base has whole wheat flour and ground oats that give it a graham cracker vibe, and the toasted marshmallow topping looks as good as it tastes.
The cookie dough was started in a food processor by first pulsing the oats until finely ground. All purpose and whole wheat flours were added with cinnamon, baking soda, and salt, and that was pulsed to combine. In a separate bowl, butter was mixed with brown sugar and an egg, and then the flour mixture was added. The cookies were shaped by the tablespoon on baking sheets and topped with squares of chocolate. I used milk chocolate thinking that kids probably prefer that to darker chocolate. The cookies baked for about thirteen minutes, and then each was topped with a marshmallow cut in half. One baking sheet at a time was placed under the broiler for a minute or so to toast the marshmallows.
The chocolate squares don’t actually melt into the cookies. They keep their shape and are good bases for the half marshmallow toppers. When you cut the marshmallows, placing the halves sticky side down prevents them from falling off the cookies when you move the baking sheet to the oven. With such easy preparation and a classic flavor combination like this, it’s a keeper of a recipe. Of course, I made chocolate chip cookies too which made Kurt very happy, but I thought the s’mores cookies were the better of the two.
I made homemade Kaiser rolls, and I had a plan for them. I had been thinking about these sandwiches on Kaiser rolls for a year, or the recipe had been sitting in my files for that long anyway. Last September, these num pangs appeared in Food and Wine, and the combination of big flavors and crisp vegetables was something I wanted to try. They could have been made with just about any roll, and semolina baguettes were suggested as another option, but they were shown on Kaiser rolls which seemed just right. There’s a lot going on in these sandwiches. The julienned carrots aren’t just raw carrots. They’re crisped in vinegar with a little sugar. And, the pesto is no standard pesto. It’s made with Thai basil and spiked with anchovies, lime juice, and fish sauce. That’s not all. While plain mayonnaise would have been good, drizzled with sriracha, it was even better.
So, to make those quick-pickled carrots, cider vinegar and sugar were combined and the julienned carrot sticks were tossed in the mixture. That was left at room temperature for an hour and stirred from time to time. The pesto was made by whizzing the following in a food processor: Thai basil leaves, anchovies, lime juice, fish sauce, crushed red pepper flakes, and chopped garlic. The Kaiser rolls were split, toasted, and buttered, and then it was time to build sandwiches. One side of each roll was spread with mayonnaise and drizzled with sriracha, and the other side was topped with pesto. The sandwich was layered with thinly sliced cucumber, piquillo peppers, carrots, and cilantro leaves.
This sandwich has been by far my favorite use of these Kaiser rolls. For a sandwich full of vegetables, the flavor was incredible. The smokiness from the piquillos was a nice touch, but even raw red bell pepper strips would have been great. I definitely recommend the pesto, and there’s a tip in the recipe intro for a quicker version. Store-bought basil pesto could be doctored by adding chiles, lime juice, and fish sauce for a similar result. I also wouldn’t skip the sriracha on the mayonnaise. In fact, that will be appearing on almost all of my future sandwiches.
When I finally started baking from The Bread Baker's Apprentice, I didn’t have good luck with the first two breads I tried. Maybe I chose poorly and should have started with less fussy varieties, but the efforts weren’t completely wasted. I became more familiar with pre-ferments and how chilling them overnight before mixing them into a dough develops flavor. Flavor was definitely not a problem with those first two breads, but I decided to take a break from ciabatta and pugliese and attempt Kaiser rolls. I wanted to jump right in and order a Kaiser roll stamp to make the distinctive cuts in the tops of the rolls, but given my track record with this book, I decided to wait and see how the first batch went before buying a special tool. The stamp makes the pinwheel cuts with one press. There’s also an alternative suggested in the book which involves making a knotted kind of roll that looks similar. I decided to just make multiple cuts in a pinwheel pattern using a lame. The rolls turned out fine, so I’ll have to order the stamp for next time.
Once again, a pre-ferment, this time a pate-fermentee, was mixed and chilled in the refrigerator overnight. The pate-fermentee was brought up to room temperature and then mixed into a dough with flour, salt, barley malt syrup, yeast, an egg, vegetable oil, and water. The dough was kneaded and then fermented for two hours. It was divided into eight pieces which were left to relax for ten minutes before shaping each into a Kaiser roll with pinwheel cuts on top. Then, oddly enough, each roll was placed top side down on a semolina-dusted baking sheet. The pretty, swirly cuts were smashed. That just seemed wrong. After 45 minutes, the rolls were flipped cut side up, and I ended up re-cutting the swirls into most of them. They proofed for another 30 minutes while the oven warmed. Then, I had some questions. The rolls pictured in the book have glossy tops that I assumed could only be achieved with an egg wash. However, the instructions for pre-baking were to simply mist with water and sprinkle with poppy seeds or sesame seeds. I proceeded with just water and sprinkled poppy seeds. That was question one. Question two was why was the oven spritzed with water after loading the rolls? Steam produces a crispy crust and these should have been tender and shiny rather than crisp. So, as suspected, water on the rolls and water spritzed in the oven resulted in crisp surfaced rolls that were perfectly fine and tasty but completely lacking gloss, and next time I will try an egg wash and no water sprayed in the oven.
It was a lot of fun to make Kaiser rolls at home for the first time, and they were delicious rolls. Sally, who is a great bread baker at Bewitching Kitchen, has told me that Reinhart’s later books include slightly different techniques with more consistent results. It will be interesting to bake from and compare the more recent books. Not that I’m giving up on this one. I’ve learned so much, it was almost like bread college in a book. I’ll definitely be trying more from it, but up next, I have to show you how I used these homemade Kaiser rolls.
I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
Sweet potatoes keep coming in our CSA bushels, and they are a welcome site. My favorite use of them is making oven fries seasoned with various chile powders. I’ve taken to dipping those oven fries into harissa instead of ketchup which brings another layer of smoky, spiciness. It’s not that I’ve gotten tired of that routine. In fact, I’ll probably roast some wedges and serve them exactly like that later this evening, but with last week’s sweet potatoes, I felt the need to try something new. I found this Sri Lankan dish in Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian. It’s made with an aromatic and spicy mix of ingredients that accommodates sweet potatoes like it was meant to be.
First, peeled and chunked sweet potatoes were boiled with ground turmeric added to the water. Next, oil was heated in a large frying pan, and dried red chiles were added followed by whole cardamom pods and a cinnamon stick. Then, I ran into an issue with needing curry leaves. I can never find curry leaves, and I’ve considered growing my own plant, but a suggested substitution was holy basil or any basil. I do have Thai basil and opal basil and Genovese basil plants and they're all still doing well, so I used Thai basil here. About 20 leaves were added to the frying pan with the spices, and the amazing smell of those ingredients cooking together was a happy moment in the kitchen. It got even better when a big pile of sliced onions was added. After the onion slices browned, the drained sweet potato chunks were added and cooked for five minutes or so until tender but still holding their shape. Last, crushed red chiles, salt, and lime juice were added just before serving.
The alluring cooking smells translated into a very flavorful dish. The sweetness of the potatoes and the sweet savoriness of the browned onions were met with chile heat and warm spices. Of course I’ll continue to make my regular oven fries from time to time, but now there’s a new sweet potato dish to add to the rotation.
I have some extra bread in the house since I’ve been baking from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. I started with the pugliese which didn’t turn out quite right. That bread is made from a wet dough and should be very open in structure with a chewy, holey crumb. The process of making the dough went fine, and it came out of the oven looking great. However, when I cut into the first loaf, I was less than thrilled with a somewhat tight crumb lacking those characteristic, gaping holes. Those two loaves went into the freezer for crouton use at a later date. I moved on to ciabatta with poolish. This is the same style of dough, and again, the bread should have been full of holes throughout the interior. Again, it was less than ideal. This time, the flavor was amazing, the texture was moist as it should be, but the structure was wrong. I’ve double- and triple-checked the recipes to be sure I didn’t skip something or do any step out of order, and I’ve concluded I’ll just need to keep practicing. The flavor of the ciabatta saved it from being doomed to the freezer, and I decided to make some cheesy toasts with it to hide the look of the failed crumb.
I received a sample of Normandie Camembert from Ile de France, and thought the earthy notes of the cheese would pair well with mushrooms. So, for the first of two toasts, I sauteed cremini mushrooms with chopped rosemary and scooped them onto slices of my ciabatta that had been toasted under the broiler with a drizzle of olive oil. I added camembert which instantly softened and melted its way around the mushrooms. This was a camembert with character, a red wine kind of cheese, and mushrooms were the right choice to go with it.
The second type of toast is from Donna Hay magazine. I mentioned I had cut several pages from that last issue I read. This toast version was made by schmearing harissa on the toasted bread and then topping it with marinated artichoke quarters and adding fresh mozzarella. Once built, these toasts went back under the broiler so the mozzarella could transform into a deliriously oozy, lovely state. It’s an interesting combination and one I never would have thought to create, but the spicy harissa and marinated artichokes were delicious under the melted cheese. Even if you have perfect bread that can proudly show its face, both of these toppings are worth trying.
I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
It’s been a month since we were on vacation. I don’t know where that month went, but in early September I was lounging by a sparkling pool with the hot, bright sun in my face, lazily reading Donna Hay magazine issue 51 to be exact. I cut several pages from that issue and I’ll be mentioning some other dishes soon, but first I have to tell you about these cookie squares. They’re from an article about classic bars, or slices, ranging from lemon to chocolate peppermint, and they all looked delicious. What you see here are the first two I tried which were the filled crumble slice and the ginger crunch slice. In the article, the crumble slice was made with a fresh rhubarb filling. Rhubarb season is long gone here in the northern hemisphere, so I used preserves instead. These weren’t just any preserves though. My friend Stephanie has started a new business called Confituras selling her amazing preserves, jams, pickles, and all manner of confitures. Everything is made with locally sourced ingredients, and if you can’t make it to the farmers’ markets or local shops where jars are sold, you can order online. Her lovely ginger pear preserves were delicious in these crumble bars.
The cookie base was made with sugar, flour, baking powder, egg and melted butter. It was pressed into a pan and baked until golden. I spread twelve ounces of ginger pear preserves over the base and then added the crumble topping made by rubbing cold butter into flour and sugar with your fingertips. It went back into the oven for another 40 minutes. These were rich, little squares, and the bits of pear with ginger flavor in the preserves made a nice fruit layer in the middle.
The second cookie bar, and the one shown below, was called ginger crunch. The base for this one was made more like a pastry crust. Cold butter was pulsed in a food processor into a mixture of flour, baking powder, sugar, and ground ginger until crumbly, and then that combination was pressed into a baking pan and baked for about 30 minutes. Once cool, it was topped with a thick glaze made by melting butter with honey and more ground ginger, and then whisking in confectioners’ sugar. I actually ran out of ground ginger and only had about a teaspoon to use rather than the full one and a half tablespoons suggested for the glaze, so I used a little grated, fresh ginger as well. These squares were crunchier than the crumble bars, and the glaze was rich and buttery and fragrant with ginger. Both of these cookie squares are classics for a reason. They're easy to bake and to serve, and I know I'll be making them both again.
. I had waited months to try it, and when I had an extra butternut squash and some tomatoes on hand from our CSA, I went for it. With a mix of both winter squash and tomatoes, it’s a perfect cross-over season dish. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve tried from this book. Interesting flavor combinations and simple, seasonal dishes keep me coming back to it. The chapters in the book are organized by ingredient, and this salad is from the vinegar chapter. The butternut squash was pickled in red wine vinegar, and the salad was finished with aged balsamic. The vinegars were balanced by the sweetness of the squash and slow-roasted tomatoes and the beautiful, creamy, fresh burrata.
, I didn’t have good luck with 
. It’s made with an aromatic and spicy mix of ingredients that accommodates sweet potatoes like it was meant to be. 
